LEDs have the inherent potential to provide the brightness, output, and operational lifetime that would compete with conventional light sources. Unfortunately, LEDs produce light in semiconductor materials, which have a high refractive index, thus making it difficult to efficiently extract light from the LED without substantially reducing brightness, or increasing the apparent emitting area of the LED. Because of a large refractive index mismatch between the semiconductor and air, an angle of an escape cone for the semiconductor-air interface is relatively small. Much of the light generated in the semiconductor is totally internally reflected and cannot escape the semiconductor thus reducing brightness.
Previous approaches of extracting light from LED dies have used epoxy or silicone encapsulants, in various shapes, e.g. a conformal domed structure over the LED die or formed within a reflector cup shaped around the LED die. Encapsulants have a higher index of refraction than air, which reduces the total internal reflection at the semiconductor-encapsulant interface thus enhancing extraction efficiency. Even with encapsulants, however, there still exists a significant refractive index mismatch between a semiconductor die (typical index of refraction, n of 2.5 or higher) and an epoxy encapsulant (typical n of 1.5).
Recently, it has been proposed to make an optical element separately and then bring it into contact or close proximity with a surface of an LED die to couple or “extract” light from the LED die. Such an element can be referred to as an extractor. Examples of such optical elements are described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2002/0030194A1, “LIGHT EMITTING DIODES WITH IMPROVED LIGHT EXTRACTION EFFICIENCY” (Camras et al.).